


Strong (for you)

by eggsky



Category: Chronicle (2012), Dane Gang - Fandom, Kill Your Darlings (2013), Lincoln (2012), The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Dane Gang Secret Santa, Enemies to Friends, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, idk man a lot is happening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9019966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggsky/pseuds/eggsky
Summary: Harry's father dies of the disease early before he ever has a chance to talk to Harry, now Harry's forced to go back to New York at 17 to prepare to run Oscorp. A month into it, he's told he needs to graduate high school. Rather forcefully he's enrolled at the Masters, a private co-education boarding school. In the transition of it all he's stuck in the middle of his roommate Julius' life and he reveals that they were never brought together by chance. Julius' old friendships come back to haunt him, and Harry questions his own strength to hold it all together.(For the Dane Gang Secret Santa 2016 Event, and more specifically for you Frida)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The song that influenced the title: Strong, by London Grammar

Harry can list all the things he missed about New York on his left hand. Everything he hates? Maybe he needs a few dozen hands, but one less considering his father had passed. There has to be some kind of age limit to owning a company, you’d think seventeen wouldn’t make the cut, but unfortunately it does. It’s been a month of board members faces, assistants getting him the alcohol he needs, and Menken constantly watching over his shoulder pestering him to pick a school already and graduate. It’s true that he needs to graduate, but it’s the other kids with stable families and happy lives that anger him. He’ll come up with a million excuses not to go, and until the end of September he’s had his way. 

He naturally exits the car one day but the door slams behind him. He turns and catches his bag in the air after being tossed out the car window, it speeds off before he can even scream for the driver to stop. He drops his leather bag at his boots, there are voices behind him in hushed whispers. He looks behind and glares because how dare they witness this and not do something! Though, they’re all in this uniform the abruptly a connection is made. They drove all the way to Dobbs Ferry so he can go to the Masters private high school. He looks up past the faces of students walking through the wooden door entrance to see the grey stoned building, older than some of the buildings he’s seen in New York, with red painted roof windows that tower above at least three floors. 

“No. _No_ this is _not_ happening.” 

Harry pats himself down until he discovers his phone in his blazer and violently punches in Menken’s number. It immediately goes to voicemail, so he calls his assistant instead. 

‘Mr. Osborn?’ 

‘Why here?! I’m the one who had legal rights for the school decision, I did not pick- ‘ 

’30 days and the decision must be made by the guardian, sir.’

‘Excuse me?’ 

It wasn’t a question, more so a threat. Her voice quivers over the line. 

‘He- He wanted you to stay out of state, but I convinced him to have you stay.’

‘You did?’ 

Harry closes his eyes, grateful to have at least one person to be trustworthy. 

‘Mmhm.’ 

’Thank you Felicia.’ 

There’s a small pause and he just hears air, the birds sing behind him like some goddamn Disney movie, this whole school has this false beauty to it.

‘There’s a dormitory, your room is already set up and you’ll only be coming back for holidays.’ 

‘Wait, I have to _live here?_ That fucking-‘

‘It’s only for the year, sir.’

He presses his lips together hard and exhales fiercely. 

‘Okay.’ 

‘One more thing, Harry… There’s a student assigned to you. If you need anything, he’s available.’

‘Why aren’t _you_ available?’

‘There’s a policy and this is the most I can do I-‘

‘Okay, stop.’ She does, and on cue she apologizes.

‘I’m sorry Harry.’

‘It’s fine, it had to happen eventually.’ 

‘I mean it, for everything you’re going through.’ 

Harry looks out into the green of the trees, the wind just catching a breeze and they sway gently. He pulls his phone away from his ear and ends the call.

___________________________________________________________________________

A short blonde senior hands Harry his schedule. 

“This is your keycard to get inside and here’s a copy of your schedule, it’s also emailed to you incase you lose it," she says. 

“Thanks.” A blush falls over her complexion and she turns away from him. _Thank god she isn’t the student._ He holds the keycard against the scanner and the door unlocks, and strangely enough the keycard says **double** below the dorm number of the room. He opens the door and is immediately greeted by the sunlight peaking through the sheer curtains and soft music playing from a nearby speaker. The room is only a quarter size of what he was expecting, the bed is twin instead of a full with navy shams and pillows neatly placed at the front of it. The duvet matches the curtains, the navy and white school colors. The furniture is all a dark oak wood, similar flooring that follows a rich historic aesthetic the whole building possesses. The closet is the most disappointing feature, he’ll never fit his winter collection in that restricted amount of space. His bookshelf is full of magazines and sculptures he’s made in his ceramics class last year. The only framed piece on the wall is a picture of the school taken at a bird’s eye view. He nods to himself, thinking this isn’t horrible, but he’s only looking at the left side of the room from the way he’s holding the door. 

“You can come in.”

Harry raises his brows at the voice and cautiously allows the door to swing open, it glides over the black welcome rug with ease. The other side of the room has the bathroom; he deduces from a closed door. But also the exact same style of furniture, a poorly made bed with the blankets hang half on, half off and a knitted throw blanket curled up in the corner. There’s papers scattered over the desk, framed pictures on a dresser of family. An American flag hangs against the furthest wall, along with a poster of Abraham Lincoln. Harry finally looks at who owns this side of the room he’s irritatingly sharing with; it’s a rather short boy that Harry assumes to be the same age, with messy dirty blond hair and eye bags that lead into familiar piercing blue grey eyes. He has an oversized sweater over his button-up top that’s aged, like it’s been worn for years on end. Harry frowns and the kid studies him intensely.

“You’re not the first to be upset to share a room with me,” the boy says and he pauses the music playing from his phone. He grabs a camouflage jacket off of the back of the desk chair and walks towards his closet and reaches for one of the wire hangers, placing the hanger through the jacket opening and hanging it inside the closet. “You should have enrolled the same time as everyone else, then you’d have a single room.”

Harry tilts his head, his tongue presses against the inside of his cheek. He nods once and crosses his arms.

“Why do you assume I’m upset?”

The kid looks back and smiles, like he can see right through Harry. 

“You _are_ upset about something.”

_Great, he’s one of those._

“So what should I call you? I need your name for when I go to the dorm administration and demand for a single room.”

Harry steps forward, standing tall. The kid faces again towards Harry. 

“Julius.” 

“Well hello, Julius. I think you should know who you’re addressing. I’m Harry _Osborn._ ”

“I know. I did say you’re not the first to act out.”

“Yeah? We’ll see about our little situation here, _Julius._ ”

Harry turns his back and throws his bag onto the bed, grabs his keycard and storms out slamming the door behind him. He looks down the long sunny hallway of endless dorms and attempts to remember which way he came in. Two flights of stairs up but the office wouldn’t be in the same building, not the office that will directly solve this problem. It’s already five thirty in the evening and he knows it would just be another filed complaint, but there’s no way in hell this Julius kid is going to stay with Harry. Besides, who the hell knits? It’s 2012 for fucks sake.  
He faces the door of the 106 dorm and enters his keycard again, and in defeat he walks inside. 

“How did it go Harry?”

Harry flashes a death glare and crawls onto his own bed, reaching for his headphones out of his trouser pocket. 

“Silent treatment?”

Harry turns on his side so his back faces Julius.

“Okay, well let me know when you get hungry.”

He lifts his head and looks over his shoulder, because he is incredible famished. Maybe he can ignore it for one night, it’s not like he hasn’t before for a photo-shoot. He takes out his iphone and inputs his headphone jack and presses play. _Baby came home today… told me to stay away,_ Harry closes his eyes and raises the volume, The Neighbourhood’s album always takes him to a better place.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry meets Julius, who turns out to not be as horrible as he expected.

Harry wakes up cold, curled up against the wall on his bed. There’s movement he can hear behind him, and he remembers where he is. He’ll never know what it’s like to wake up and know exactly where you are. That could be a perk of being rich, but it’s also what happens when your father sends you hundreds of miles away. He pretends to be asleep in hopes that Julius will leave soon, because Harry does need a minute of space to breathe. The bathroom door closes and he rolls over to see if it’s safe, and it is.

“Thank god.”   He yawns into his hand, still in the same outfit from yesterday. It must be early from the angle of the sun, he slept through dinner into the next day. Julius cracks open the bathroom door to peek his head out. 

“I’m going to shower, do you need the bathroom first?”

Harry shakes his head and Julius grins at him before shutting the door. Something must be off. Harry looks at his clothes, although wrinkled there isn’t any drool stains. Is it his face? Did Julius draw on his face or shave off his eyebrows? Harry leaps out of bed and looks into the long mirror against the door. It’s his hair- sticking up in all directions. Of course it is, and his eyebrows are still there. He would feel more relieved if he saw Julius packing, but it looks like this isn’t something Harry can negotiate. 

He smiles to himself.

_Or is it?_

_____________________________________________

After they’ve both gotten dressed and Harry fought with his hair dryer, Julius knocks gently against the frame of the bathroom door and Harry stares at him through the mirror. His roommate speaks softly, his voice hints that he’s nervous.

“Do you want breakfast? You missed dinner so I thought we could go to the dining hall together.”

Harry sets down his comb, thinking of how to confront this again. 

“Sure, I’ve been meaning to talk to you so we can do it over breakfast.” 

“Okay. We should go now before Lucien’s gang gets down there, we have an hour before that.”

There was a bit of fear around Lucien’s name, but Harry isn’t going to question it yet. He leaves the bathroom and slides on his boots and stretches down to tie them. 

“Ready.”

The dining hall is mediocre, the tables are long with white linens and plate settings for each seat. Menus are left of each wine glass and waiters stand ready to be called for each order. After a short wait they are served the scheduled meal, Harry sits opposite of Julius where he can view the rest of the room. He watches Julius take the first bite and he nearly moans like it’s his first meal in months. 

“The food is always good.”

Harry stabs at the eggs with his fork. 

“It looks alright.” 

He takes a bite, and it’s already missing pepper. It doesn’t stop him though, he’s starving. He starts to shovel the eggs without care that Julius has a smug look of satisfaction. 

“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?"

  Harry picks up the dinner napkin and wipes his mouth. “I want to know how much.” 

Julius raises a brow, confused.

“How much it’ll take for you to switch into a different room. Name it, anything you want.” 

Julius shakes his head, chuckling at the offer. Harry raises his voice, enough to get the message clear. “I saw what kind of shoes you wear, I looked you up while you were getting ready. You’re just a public school kid who did enough community service and enough essays to get into this school on a scholarship. If you aren’t like the others, then maybe I could give you extra cash. You want a boat? A jet? My respect?”   Julius sets down his water goblet and shakes his head. 

“Other students got a scholarship Harry, and it’s just a coincidence you ended up in my dorm. You can’t _buy_ respect, it’s earned.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but he knows Julius is right. 

“So you don’t want money from me.”

“No.”

Harry sits back in his seat, staring down a different student who’s trying to eavesdrop. _Everyone wants his money. Why is Julius any different?_ He stabs at the remaining eggs on his plate and reaches for his coffee.

“Did you grow up in New York, Harry?”

He takes a long, exaggerated sip of his black coffee. “Why don’t you just read my wikipedia page.”

“Ha, that’s funny. Do you- Wait, do you actually have one?”

Harry fights back the urge to smile. “I do.” 

Julius takes out his phone and begins to tap on the screen quickly. Harry’s careful to set down his coffee and he leaps up out of his seat to stop him. “No! I lied don’t look it up- dude _don’t_.”

Julius recoils back, keeping his phone close to his chest as he scrolls and laughs. Harry has to stop himself from jumping on top of the table to just grab the idiot’s phone. _Fuck, whatever. Ought to happen eventually._

“You were a model?” He says, a glimmer in his eye.

“I _am_ a model. I’m more than that if you just…” he sits back down and rests his elbows on the table, “Keep reading.” 

Julius’ eyes flash from the screen to Harry, and he can see that he’s just like a sponge absorbing all this information about the Osborn heir. “Wait you’re taking five college courses now?”

He nods. 

“I am too, but they’re mostly American History and math, I want to enlist.”

It’s weird that there’s his whole life, even his current school, available to anyone. He shudders, already feeling too exposed. 

“In the army? And yeah I noticed the flag, and what’s up with the poster-“ 

He’s cut off by the noise coming inside, in walks a lanky blonde carrying three books in his left arm, and tossing his bag into a chair with his right. His friends are hollering but one of them, a boy with a camera, breaks away from the group and sits further down the table where he films the room. Harry looks to Julius who’s frightened, mostly by the kids hollering rather than anyone else. Though there’s something in his eyes that shows he’s about to do something dangerous, and Harry gathers back his attention. 

“We could go if you’re finished. Classes start soon, right?”

“Yes. I’ll show you what building they’re in. You want to text me your schedule?”

Harry shoots an uncomfortable look.

“It’s just to see what classes we have together.”

He stands out of his seat and grabs his bag, then a whoosh of the screenshot text is sent to Julius’ phone.

“So uh, we don’t have classes together today but I’ll take you to your first one. All of yours are in the same building so they won’t be difficult to find.” 

They leave their plates for the waiters and leave dining hall, walking through the corridors towards the science building.

“I can find them on my own after you show me what building it is, so you don’t have to take me.”

Julius frowns slightly. “You don’t want me to take you?”

Harry keeps walking, occasionally staring down at him. His hair is more golden in the light, and there’s a freckle on his cheek. 

“No.”

Julius doesn’t say anything else, they keep walking silently together until they reach a sign for the science building. 

“I’ll see you for dinner since our lunch doesn’t line up today. Have you signed up for activities?” 

“What do you mean.”

“Like basketball or the arts? What are you good at?”

“I’m not a sport guy.” 

“Yeah, not in those shoes.”

  Harry’s mouth drops open and he smiles, _this guy._

“These are Gucci, sorry I’m not into those special edition Nikes.”

“Do you see those on my feet?”

“Do you want them?” He jokes, poking at Julius’ side. “I’ll trade you, shoes for the room.”

Julius fully rolls his eyes, and Harry steps backwards towards his class snickering at him. 

“I’ll see you later Har,” Julius waves.

Harry turns away, stomach clenching hard. He hasn’t been called that in years. He hasn’t even thought of who originally called him that since he was eleven. He picks up the pace to climb the stairs to the second floor.

Class, focus on class. He enters the first large room on the left with padded seats for each of the desks. There’s a smart board at the front of the room, and students are piling into what looks like assigned seats. Harry stands in the back, waiting for a free seat to open. The kid he saw across the dining hall with the camera sits by the corner, next to a free seat. He’s wearing a hoodie over his uniform and growing some form of an embarrassing mullet. Harry sits down and immediately feels the camera on him, like someone’s high beams are shining right into the back of another car. Harry looks over and he’s already putting the camera down out of sight into the desk, slouching back awkwardly in his seat. 

“Hey, pssst.”

He looks up at Harry.

“What’s with the camera?”

He hesitates, uncomfortable that Harry's even speaking to him, and he mumbles a response. “I’m just filming stuff.”

“…Alright.”

Everyone including Harry directs their attention to the professor stripping off an overcoat and tossing it over the desk chair. He’s young with short dark coarse curly hair in a well fitted suit that makes Harry drool. He smiles and dims the lights of the room, the board starts up and the lecture notes on the screen read Computer Science, something Harry’s grateful to already be familiar with.

__________________________________________________

He lands onto his bed, the leather messenger bag slips out of his fingers and he’s free of his classes for today. Overall it wasn’t horrible. No one called him out for being new, he only spoke to his professors and teachers after class. Easily he’ll can catch up, though he’ll need to make some acquaintances in class fast. He has only one English class with the blond who's apparently _the_ Lucien, and even though he sat in front of Harry he never said a word the whole class. He isn’t a suspicious character, just a charismatic guy. He’ll talk to Julius about these curious faces that are gathering his interest, likely he’ll receive some valuable information. 

Harry sits up and loosens his tie, removing it and throwing it lazily towards the closet. His vest comes off next, until he’s in his top; a plain cotton black t-shirt and his jeans. Julius hasn’t come back from basketball yet and the rest of his hall is quiet. He’ll grow exhausted being here alone like this, it’s the main reason he’ll sleep into the middle of the day most times, other than the fact he’s hungover. 

“Speaking of hungover,” he slides out of bed and walks over to Julius’ side of the room, a risky idea coming to his head. There’s beeping from outside the door and Harry jumps two feet back, and Julius walks in raising a suspicious brow. 

“Whatch’ya doing?”

“Okay,” he raises his hands up. “I was going to snoop for boos.” 

“Oh. Harry, why didn’t you just ask?”

Julius drops his sneakers by the door and goes down on his knees, arms reaching underneath his bed. After the sound of a spring breaking he pulls out a bottle of vodka. 

“I was going to save it for the weekend because I cannot go to another class half drunk.”

Harry walks up to Julius and pats him on the back.

“Julius, you’re a lifesaver.”

He nods in agreement and grins, this is the first time Harry actually notices there’s a small gap in Julius’ teeth. It’s almost adorable, but the vodka is the actual angel right now.

“We can wait," Harry says. "I can wait.”

“I don’t want to babysit the new kid at school so we’ll have to wait until this weekend.”

He sighs, still watching the liquor dance inside the bottle.   “One shot before dinner though?”

“ _One shot_.”

“Two.”

“ **Two** , but nothing more.”

Julius hands Harry the bottle and disappears into the bathroom to find small paper rinse cups to use as shot glasses. Harry unscrews the cap and resists the urge to press his lips against the bottle, to swallow down as much as possible. Julius returns and hands Harry a cup and he begins to pour, and pour and pour where it’s far past a double shot.  “Hey! Do you want to get us kicked out of here! Split that with me.”

Harry obliges and pours half into Julius’ cup, they tap their small cups together and down their ‘shots.’ The vodka is smooth, but it boils into his gut and he gives a sharp hiss until it’s gone. 

“Yeah I need more.”

“No, let’s go to dinner already.” Julius holds out his hand for the bottle and Harry looks at it longingly before handing it back to its owner.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spilling the tea with Julius (eye emoji)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ongoing chapter, but still important to post this early.

Harry picks at his chicken piccata while Julius goes over his day. He goes in such detail Harry's using this to know which teachers are absolute crap, and who he shouldn’t sweat about. It’s been a full 24 hours here and he has a feeling the rest of the year will drag on. Though the drama seems interesting at least, and speaking of--

“Julius,” Harry interrupts. Julius bites into a biscuit as he starts, “I need to stop you for a second, I want to know why you wanted to avoid that kid Lucien.”

Julius lowers the biscuit and he stares somewhere off in the distance. “It’s not just Lucien Carr I’m avoiding.”

“Uh... Elaborate.”

Julius crosses his arms. “Lucien used to be my roommate.” 

“What?” Does this mean there’s still a chance he can change rooms? “Go on.”

Julius bites his lip and speaks hushed but quickly, to get it out before anyone else can listen in. “He transferred two years ago, just like you did. He also was late in the semester when he got here so he was assigned to me. We got along at first but then it just…” Julius raises his shoulders high for a moment before dropping them. “We had complications. Well, he was complicated. So were the friends he made.”

So it was a mutual thing, Harry understands that. Awkward ex-roommate, why didn’t Julius just say that? “Yeah, I don’t do complicated.” Anything messy, like fighting with a roommate... shit. Well, there's other complicated things in the world. “Also there’s the kid with the camera that follows him around, what’s up with that?”

“That’s Andrew Detmer. I’ve known him since I got here, he’s also on a scholarship.”

“Okay so you know him and are you friends or is there some reason he’s avoiding looking over here.” 

“We were friends, yeah.” Julius rubs the back of his neck, the look on his face indicating that he doesn’t feel comfortable enough to continue on, but he pursues. “Lucien and Andrew were friends first, and since Lucien and I well... had our differences, now Andrew and I sometimes text.”

“Sounds like a lot of drama," Harry coos.

”It is.” He stares off behind Harry and suddenly ducks his head down. “Oh fuck, okay just ignore them.”

Harry lifts his head high, looking around. Lucien’s friends are crowded around a table nearby, and once Harry catches Lucien's eye across the room the blonde returns a grin.

“And who are they?”

“Just Lucien’s _followers._ " 

Harry glares over at them, daring them to come closer. “Why are they over here?” 

“Probably for you," He says, focusing on rolling a piece of broccoli over some potatoes. 

They must be in his English class too, he can recognize one of them with a pot leaf on his backpack. They continue to linger by them uncomfortably, waiting for something to happen. Like a test. If Julius wasn’t here to watch him he’d stand up right here and get in their face, but that's what Lucien must want.

“This is annoying.” He sighs, rolling his eyes at them.

“If you ignore them long enough they’ll go away.”

“I don’t understand what’s their problem, and you do know that doesn’t actually work."

“I _know them_. And Lucien's set out to take my friends away from me.” Julius brings his fingers up to the side of his head, grabbing at his own curls and twirling them nervously around his finger. "I just know."

“That’s pathetic for him to do that to you.” Also a bold statement. Who goes this far over something two years ago? There must be more that Julius can't get out.

“Yeah well, I supposedly stole Andrew from him. _But I didn’t._ We were friends until last year, now everything’s changed." Again with that smile, distinctive hope. "Especially since you’re here Harry.” 

Harry can feel heat creeping up on his face and he chews on the inside of his cheek. “Me? A change.” 

The smaller one silently gasps. He's embarrassed, probably by his answer. “You're... Okay."

 _What?_ “Never mind, you’re just being a prick aren’t you?”

Julius smiles, like the golden sunshine boy he is and pulls the sleeves of his shirt over his hands. Harry picks up a dinner roll from the basket between them and tosses it at Julius’ head, a fit of giggles pours out of him as it bounces off and lands somewhere on the ground. Julius' mouth goes wide and he bends, snatching it up off the ground then tears it in half, and aims it at Harry’s face. 

“Don’t you _dare,_ ” Harry threatens.

 _Fire,_ pieces fly at Harry’s nose and drop crumbles over his scrunched up face and clothes. He wipes them off, annoyance and youthful happiness burrow in the pit of him. Looking up to meet Julius' eyes their chuckling feels endless until he notices the smile fading, and Harry understands why. He can still feel eyes watching them. At Lucien’s table, it’s empty. He must have left early, however, that doesn’t explain why the two are still lurking a few yards away, watching the tiny food fight conclude. 

“Hey,” Harry says and Julius’ frown eases. “Let’s go back our dorm.” Julius nods gently and stands, eyes locked on the movements of the two boys. Harry walks around to the other side of the table and reaches for Julius’ hand, surprising both of them by pulling him out of the dining hall. 

_Our dorm, huh._


End file.
